Cady pulled her hand to her side, but the skin of her wrist was twisting and pinching in his grip. With his other hand firm on her shoulder, Teddy pressed her against the door, closing it behind them, his strength overpowering her. Cady knew she was in trouble, but in a fog of shock, fear, and vodka, she stood frozen. He pushed his mouth on hers again, biting her lower lip. Even the pain didn’t pull her consciousness back into her body, not until she heard it again:
You scared? Good. Use it. Fear makes you strong.
It was as if the woman’s voice had taken the place of her own. Cady couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe, he was kissing her so hard. But the voice was coaching her back into her body, slowly, and she began to dig her fingernails into Teddy’s forearm. But he didn’t react.
Fight, girl. Fight for yourself, fight to get free. The voice was growing louder.
Teddy tried to force her hand back to his groin, but she made a fist and hip-checked it into him. He flinched.
MOVE! The voice was so loud it startled her. Cady wrenched free and lunged aside, a split second before the bedroom door flew open, slamming into Teddy and knocking him halfway to the ground.
“What the hell?” Teddy clutched his shoulder.
She was stunned to see Nikos standing in the doorway, looking at her with eyes as wide as hers must have been.
“Cady! Are you all right? Ted, what’s going on?”
“Relax, we’re hanging out, having a good time. Weren’t we, Cady?”
She felt overwhelmed by shame; she couldn’t look Nikos in the eye, but she knew she wouldn’t get another chance to escape. Her voice was small but firm: “I want to go home.”
“We’re going.” Nikos put a comforting hand on her shoulder. As they passed Teddy at the door, Nikos muttered, “Bastard.”
“Sorry, dude. Didn’t know you were hitting it too.”
Nikos spun around and punched him square in the jaw.
Teddy stumbled backward, clutching his chin. He spat on the ground and swore, but he didn’t dare look back at Cady. “What the fuck, man?”
Nikos swept her out of the room, leaving Teddy to shout after them. He led her down a hall and down a different staircase. Cady was completely disoriented. The whole night felt like a bad dream.
When they reached the first floor, he pulled her into a small sitting room that was relatively quiet. “Here, sit for a second. You’re shaking. Tell me what happened.”
Her voice sounded barely above a whisper. “He said we were getting my coat. I feel so stupid.”
“Innocence is not the same as stupidity.”
Cady shook her head. “I was warned, this voice told me, I didn’t listen—”
“The voice … inside you?” Nikos’s eyes searched her face with worry. His earnest concern sobered her.
“Yes,” she made herself say.
“I’m not surprised. Unfortunately, your gut was dead on with Teddy. He’s the Phoenix’s resident asshole, I swear we’re not all like that, but don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known.”
Cady nodded. Maybe it was her own intuition speaking to her. “I mean, you’re right. I just—” But why didn’t it sound anything like her? “I can’t think straight right now. I feel crazy.”
“Don’t worry, you’re safe now, you don’t have to say anything more.” He put an arm around her and rubbed her back. “I’m just glad I was there.”
“How? How did you know where I was?”
“Rob told me you had asked for me, and when he said Teddy was with you, I knew you were in trouble. We all know his routine.” Nikos must have felt her tense at the word “routine.” “God, that sounds bad. He should be kicked out.”
“Of school?”
“I meant the Phoenix, but fuck, yes, probably both.”
Cady hung her head. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Why? You did nothing wrong.”
But that wasn’t true. That hadn’t been true since last Christmas. Since losing Eric, she had learned things about herself that she hated. She was a person who misjudged people, who took things for granted, who lied. And tonight only proved it. She’d misjudged Teddy. She’d drunk too much. She hadn’t stopped him earlier or more forcefully—although the memory of his grip twisting her skin argued that more force wouldn’t have made a difference. She felt guilty for burdening Nikos, and for lying to him. She felt ashamed of hearing things that weren’t there, or for not knowing what was real and what wasn’t, or for believing something was real that didn’t make any sense.
But she couldn’t say any of that. “What I mean to say is, thank you. I owe you.”
“I owed it to your brother.”
That stopped her heart.
“Let’s get you home.”
12
Nearly fifty voices soared and swirled, blending and washing over one another in harmony. The song Collegium was working on, Rheinberger’s “Abendlied,” soothed Cady’s troubled spirit like a lullaby, driving out the nightmarish voices of the night before—Teddy’s lies, his lewdness, and that strange voice and its warning she didn’t heed. She had replayed every word and every action as she tried unsuccessfully to sleep, retracing her mistakes. But now the four-four time kept her anchored in the present, her sole focus on the sheet music and the confluence of sound as the group lit upon each chord.
Collegium was compromised of mostly undergrads with a handful of graduate students, but it was by far the most serious and professional choral group Cady had ever heard. She still couldn’t believe she’d been accepted; she was one of only five freshmen brought on that year, and many in the group were pursuing music as their main course of study. So she could tolerate today’s unusually early morning rehearsal at Paine Hall. Dr. Sutcliffe, their choral director, had had to cancel one of their thrice-weekly rehearsals for a conference this weekend, so he called a makeup session this Friday morning from seven to nine. Cady sensed that Dr. Sutcliffe never canceled a rehearsal. An hour in, and they had only sung through half a page of music, which was typical for Dr. Sutcliffe’s perfectionism.
“Can you hear that?” Dr. Sutcliffe called out over their singing. “Can you hear the overtone? No, no, keep going!”
But his interruption had broken the spell of their collective concentration, and as a smattering of the voices dropped out, the harmonies crumbled into uncertain melodies and elementary thirds.
“Gah!” Dr. Sutcliffe smacked his palm to his head. “I didn’t mean for you to stop singing!” He rubbed his knuckles against his brushy white mustache, his signature tic. “I interrupted not to nitpick, which you know is my favorite pastime, but to get you to hear the overtones. That will require you to listen while you sing. Tune in to the person next to you, that’s why I have you seated in quartets. The other voices are your guides.” He looked down at the score and rubbed his mustache again. “Do you know what I mean by ‘overtones?’ ”
There was an uncertain murmuring in the crowd.
“Every note produces a fundamental tone, the tone we recognize and name, and a quieter, secondary tone known as an overtone or harmonic. When you all hit the notes of your chord in tune, the resonance from each of your notes gives birth to a second, ghostly chord made of the overtones. Releasing the overtones from within our bodies to float above us will elevate the musical experience from the corporeal to the divine.”
A few students giggled.
“I feel your skepticism. Maybe we need a demo. Peter, Jamal, Elizabeth, and Annie, would you mind performing from measure twenty-six to the end of the page?”
This was one of the practices that most frightened Cady, when Dr. Sutcliffe would cold-call a singer from each voice part and ask them to sing. Her heart beat faster every time in dreaded anticipation of the day he called hers. But this time, he had chosen four of the most confident and accomplished singers; all four were seniors, Peter was an a
spiring operatic tenor and Annie sometimes assistant-directed Collegium. They each rose from their seats and carried their sheet music to the front to face the group.
Peter started them off, but as soon as the other three joined, all four voices melted into one. They rose and fell and shrank and swelled together, rounding the hard-edged German words into soft aural elements. When they reached the final chord, Dr. Sutcliffe directed them to hold it out. Cady closed her eyes. She might have been imagining it, but she thought she could detect a fifth tone above their notes, like the sound of a finger on a crystal goblet, fragile and ethereal—the overtone.
When they finished, the rest of the choir applauded and chattered to one another. Dr. Sutcliffe quieted them down. “Did you hear it that time?”
The group murmured a jumbled response. Cady penciled in a note to herself above the triplet rhythm she kept missing.
“Some of you? More than half? It’s okay, we’ll keep practicing and keep learning. All I ask is that you remember to listen to the other voices.”
She looked up from her sheet music.
“Now let’s try it from the top.”
When Dr. Sutcliffe dismissed them an hour later, Cady was loath to leave. During rehearsal, she had felt lighter than she had all weekend. Cady was putting on her coat when Nneka, a pretty African American, second soprano, approached with a smile.
“Hey, Katie, right?” asked Nneka, mistaking Cady’s name as nearly everyone did.
“It’s Cady, actually, but I answer to both.”
“Oh, Cay-dee, I got you. Please, if anybody can spare a second to get your name right, it’s me, ‘Nneka with two n’s,” she put in air quotes. “Nobody nails that on the first try.”
Cady laughed.
“If you don’t have class, some of us are going to this brunch spot across from Wadsworth House that we love, wanna join?”
“Sure, I’d love to.” Cady had liked Nneka since she first met her. It would be good to make some friends outside the tension of her roommate triangle.
“Great! I’m going to go grab some more people on their way out, but find us, and we’ll walk to the Square together.”
Nneka led Cady and a small group of five Collegium members to the restaurant and claimed the long high-top table toward the front. They decided to order at the counter in shifts so they could hold the table; Cady didn’t know what she wanted, so she let others go first. She sat facing away from the big glass window so the sun would warm her back. Cady felt a tingle at the back of her neck, either a draft from the door, or the sensation of being watched. She looked up from the menu and met the pained gaze of Rachel, a senior soprano sitting across from her, staring. Rachel leaned forward to speak softly. “I just wanted to say, I lived down the hall from your brother last year. I’m really sorry about what happened. He was my laundry room buddy, we used to play chess while we waited. He was a sweet guy.”
“Oh, thank you. That’s nice to hear,” Cady replied, but Rachel still looked concerned, so she added, “That he actually did his laundry, I mean.” She had grown adept at releasing people from their uncomfortable sympathy for her.
Rachel laughed politely. “Eric certainly had his quirks. But I’m a psych concentrator, I hope to be a clinical psychiatrist, so I’m familiar with what he was dealing with. I knew the signs.” Rachel eased back and picked up a menu, satisfied with the interaction.
What had seemed like perfunctory condolences had just become more interesting. “Like what?”
“I’m sorry?” Rachel’s blue eyes looked icy and innocent in the sunlight.
“The signs, you said, what signs specifically did you notice?” Cady no longer cared about Rachel’s comfort level, she needed this information.
“You know, I shouldn’t have overstated it. I didn’t, like, diagnose him or anything.”
“No, I know, but I’m curious what his illness was like last year. Did he say anything to you during your chess games or whatever? Did he ever mention hearing voices?”
Rachel’s cheeks grew pink and blotchy. “I’m sorry, I feel like this is coming out really badly. I don’t even know what I’m doing explaining this to you. He was your brother, you knew him better than I did—”
That was the problem, Cady thought, she hadn’t known him better, because she was a shitty sister whose only insight into her brother came from the possibility that she might currently share his mental illness.
“I only meant, I could see he needed a friend. I’m glad he was mine.”
Because I let him down, Cady thought.
“You guys are up!” Nneka said as she and the other three returned to the table. “Only bad news is, I got the last chocolate croissant. You can fight me for it.” Nneka glanced at their faces. “Y’all okay?”
Rachel said something to cover for them, and Cady excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, if only to put some people between her and Rachel in the line. As she walked toward the back of the restaurant, her temples throbbed.
The memory that haunted her always and yet never showed itself in full, only in shards. Frantically grabbing at Eric’s arms. Are you afraid? Hearing him say I’m sorry and knowing the words should be hers. Recollections that rose in her throat and threatened to choke her with self-loathing. She reflexively covered the scar on her neck with her hand and tried to push them out of her mind.
Psst.
Cady snapped her head over her shoulder but saw no one.
Pardon me, Miss, but I been watching you.
It was the woman’s voice from the Phoenix. Cady stepped into the empty hallway to the restrooms, safe from view of the other patrons.
I saw you talking to that negro girl, and the light-skinned one last night. They slaves of yours?
She blanched at the notion. Slaves?—she thought—No! Of course not, they’re my friends. And Ranjoo? She’s my roommate, and she’s Indian.
Knew a Pequot Indian when I was small. Master treated him like a dumb savage, but he was a medicine man. He taught me how to read plants and herbs, cure any ailment. Holyoke’s youngest be dead from smallpox if not for his lessons. So, black, red, you call them friend?
The voice was talking so fast, Cady felt three steps behind in her understanding— It was you last night. You were trying to help me.
I did, and I just ask this small thing in return. Please, help me, I beg of you.
Who are you?
I’m Bilhah, the Holyokes’ girl. I need a friend, Miss, a friend who knows her letters. I need you to read this to me, please.
Read what?
This, this paper here. Should take only a moment—
I can’t see—
Please, I have to get back to Wadsworth House. I can’t read it, but I need to know if they put my baby for sale, how much time I have. I’ll smell fire again before I let them take him.
Sell your baby, why—?
’Cause the president of Harvard don’t need a mute houseboy, least of all one with blue eyes that insult him! Now, please, I need your help to save my son!
Cady was so disoriented at the fever pitch of this information coming out of nowhere, and yet the uncanny sensation when certain familiar details were mentioned, like Wadsworth House, the administrative building across the street. She shook her head— But what does this have to do with me?
“Hey.” The nonchalant greeting clashed with the panicked confusion inside Cady, and she turned to see it had come from Ainsley, a blond alto, who had suddenly appeared in the hallway to the restroom. Cady couldn’t muster a hello back, so torn between reality and whatever the voice was. Ainsley, luckily, didn’t seem to notice. “Ugh, a line? Always, right?” She rolled her eyes and began tapping at her phone.
Cady coughed to stall replying when Bilhah’s voice returned, only its tone had completely changed at Ainsley’s arrival. Gone were the desperation and urgency, she sounde
d entirely deferential and poised. Thank you kindly. I’ll be right back with your tea, chamomile and rose hips, Miss, fix that cold right quick.
“You know, um. I’m sorry,” Cady stammered, recovering slowly. “I’m so stupid, I actually didn’t test the door yet.”
“Oh.” Ainsley frowned up at her. “Well, are you gonna go?”
“Yes, I am, now. Sorry.” She tried the door; it opened easily. Cady gave a pathetic laugh and slipped inside.
Locking the door behind her, she braced herself against the sink and gulped for air. This was bad, bad, bad, she told herself. These voices weren’t going away, they were coming more often, and now they wanted something from her. She was losing it. Cady looked up at her reflection in the mirror, trying to see the sane, healthy girl she used to be.
13
Cady had been circling the Ginsberg Reading Room for a sufficiently deserted chair for the last five minutes. She had retrieved the book she came for and tucked it deep inside her shoulder bag, now she just needed a private place to read it. The contemporary study space outfitted in the keep-calm colors of beige and sage was packed with diligent students, but none were paying any attention to her. Their eyes were glued to their laptop screens, ears stuffed with headphones, no one would care what Cady was reading. For another, the subject matter could easily pass as an academic interest instead of a personal one. Any psych student might pull a book on abnormal psychological phenomena; they weren’t all crazy.
Like her.
Cady settled for sitting at a table with only one person at it. The table was set up with two desk lamps at the center so she had to face her companion, a boy with dark hair and hip glasses, but at least they were separated by his laptop screen and stacks of economics books. She pulled out the book, Origins of Schizophrenia, with its troubling subtitle, The Makings of Madness. Until recently, she’d felt she knew all she needed to about schizophrenia. She understood the basics of the illness and its horrors; her family had lived through them. But it took Eric over a year to get that diagnosis. First they said it was depression, then bipolar disorder, for a while her mother thought the antidepressant medications were causing his psychosis, but finally everyone agreed on schizophrenia—except Eric—but what did he know? He was only the patient.
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